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BEING EFFECTUAL IN PRAYER
Look up two verses to start us out tonight: 1 Cor 16:9; James 5:16
Churches can run without prayer.
Whole denominations can run without prayer.
The question is: Is what they’re doing worth doing if they can do it without prayer?
Ben Patterson Deepening Your Conversation with God (1991)
Prayer is the breath of faith.
Prayer meetings are the lungs of the church.
Charles Spurgeon
Prayer is one of the most underused but badly needed tools that God has given the Christian.
We live in a day where we battle with so many distractions, scapegoats, commitments and even church activity that we do not take time to pray.
We are used to doing things for ourselves, no doubt about that, we are very able and accomplished people.
We have learned that by hard work and study, we will be rewarded.
But we have not learned in our lives the power and importance of prayer.
We have not realized the privilege that we have been given to come into the holy presence of God himself.
This is what you and I must do.
How many times have we spent an afternoon or a day trying to solve a problem or some work when what really needed to do or at least start out doing – was to pray.
Friend, we are going to be looking at Prayer and remind ourselves of its importance.
This will be part one tonight, and then we will continue with part tow next week:
To understand prayer, we need to look at:
I. THE MEANING OF PRAYER
Why pray at all, what does it mean to pray in the first place?
What is its benefit to our lives?
Its meaning lies first in finding its purpose.
A. The Purpose of Prayer
You know reading God’s Word is good and essential to the Christian’s life.
In it we get to learn about what God wants for our lives, how he wants us to live, and we get to know God himself.
But, it is one sided, because we only get to know about God, about his nature, his attributes, his love and his justice.
Though we get to know about him, we are not truly getting to know Him until we pray.
Job had a great desire to seek and to know God.
He knew the place to meet and know God was to meet at his throne.
To know the meaning of prayer we also need to understand the:
B. The Promises of Prayer
All of God's promises are sure.
He cannot lie!
Then we need to realize:
C. The Power of Prayer
There is no limit to the power of God.
There is a lot we do not know in life, there is so much that is out there that in ourselves, even as Christians we are not going to realize until we realize the power of prayer.
We need to seek God’s face to know them
The Glory of God has not been revealed to this generation of men.
The God of contemporary Christianity is only slightly superior to the gods of Greece and Rome, if indeed He is not actually inferior to them in that He is weak and helpless while they at least had power.4
A. W. Tozer
We won’t know it either until we truly allow God to get ahold of us.
D. The Purity of Prayer
Can I remind us of a simple truth:
“OUR LIVES MUST BE AS HOLY AS OUR PRAYERS.”
That is when the purity in prayer matters.
It is not just praying a pure prayer - but prayer coming from a pure vessel is even more important.
Purity is not found in the moment of need but only through a consecrated walk.
While we can be forgiven in a moment - sanctification is often a life time of workl.
1. Purity involves undivided attention
Spiritual purity may be defined as undivided affections, sincerity and genuineness, godly simplicity.
Arthur Walkington Pink
2. Purity involves a unbridled devotion
Men love to substitute ceremony for integrity, purity, and love; but Jesus will have none of it.
D. A. Carson
3. Purity requires separation from sin
The proper response to mercy received on account of past sins is purity in the future.
D. A. Carson
There is power in prayer when the person is a righteous man!
E. The Persistence of Prayer
F. The Peril of Prayer
It need not be a "big sin" which keeps God from answering prayer!
It can be any sin.
God has given us so much freedom, so much liberty in our salvation, that we waste it living for and focusing on the present conveniences and opportunities that we are being consumed by them and they become sin.
It brings to mind this quote:
The greater the potential for good the greater the potential for evil.
Elisabeth Elliot
Passion and Purity (1984)
Elisabeth Elliot
II.
THE MESSAGE OF PRAYER
A. Surrendered Praying
Jesus the Son of God was fully surrendered to God and sought to do His will.
B. Sorrowful Praying
Paul's heart was broken for the lost souls of men and women.
C. Simple Praying
1 Kings 18:25-40
Here Elijah prayed just sixty-three words and God answered by sending fire upon the sacrifice.
D. Supernatural Praying
Lets read:Genesis 18:10-14
It was impossible for Sarah and Abraham to have a son, yet with God all things are possible.
E. Strengthening Prayer
That is praying that involves waiting and allowing God to speak to you and enable you do what he has commanded you by his power and not your own.
WE ARE STOPPING THERE, NEXT WEEK WE WILL CONTINUE WITH POINT NUMBER III
Let me leave us with this thought tonight:
Prayer is not wrestling with God’s reluctance to bless us; it is laying hold of his willingness to do so.
John Blanchard
God wants to do great things with us and through us for His glory but he used the mechanism of prayer to empower us.
One day, according to Pastor Salmon, Mr. Walford recited several poems which he had composed.
He could not get anyone to write them down, so Mr. Salmon did so.
One poem was the four-stanza rhyme which is now known as “Sweet Hour of Prayer.”
—Robert S. Wilson
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